Francine Smith

Francine Smith (née Ling; formerly Dawson) is the wife of Stan Smith and the mother of Hayley Smith and Steve Smith.

Francine was born to Nicholas and Cassandra Dawson. When Francine was a young toddler in "Big Trouble in Little Langley", her parents gave her up to be in first class on a plane. Not much is known about Francine's younger years; however, she was brought up in an orphanage where she was taught that left-handers were the Devil in "Office Spaceman", and was hit with a piece of beef or a mackerel on Fridays whenever she used her left hand. At the age of 7, she was adopted and raised by a Chinese couple, Ma Ma and Bah Bah Ling. Her maiden name is Ling. Through her adopted Chinese parents, Francine has a sister, Gwen, who Stan thinks is "totally hot" and mentions it whenever her sister is brought up in conversation.

When she was about 14, she had an obsessive crush on her algebra teacher, Mr. Feeny. After Francine claimed that they were lovers, he was sent to jail where he committed suicide in the pilot. She also reported being beaten up by a group of popular girls in the school showers in "1600 Candles".

When Francine was younger, she had a brief acting career in an episode of the television show Scarecrow and Mrs. King with George Clooney. George stole her line in the show ruining her acting career. Since then, she has been passionate about killing him, or at least, making him cry. Which Stan helped her do in "Tears of a Clooney", as a 39th/40th birthday present.

Francine was a wild hippie when younger. In the '80s she slept with Adam Ant, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, and Dexys Midnight Runners. It was around this time that she met Stan, who had just graduated from the CIA academy. The couple met when Francine was hitchhiking and Stan pulled over and gave her a lift. During the trip, Stan swerved to avoid hitting a raccoon, which he did hit. To put the raccoon out of its misery, Stan shot the animal, causing Francine to become attracted to Stan for the compassion he had shown. This is the key to the plan in "Francine's Flashback" to get her memory back. The couple married soon after.

Francine's last given age was 40 in "Tears of a Clooney", although dialogue in "Stan & Francine & Stan & Francine & Radika" suggests she is now somewhere between 47 and 48, placing her in her early teens in the 1980s. American Dad! is framed as a sitcom with the characters being actors, and as such, relies on a floating timeline as needed by the writers.

Francine is cast as a typical housewife, who has no long term career but has had a few brief jobs. She complains she rarely has any friends in "Homeland Insecurity" because Stan always scares them away. Although Francine has settled down as a mother, her old personality traits will sometimes flare up, such as when she goes out drinking with an old friend in "The Kidney Stays in the Picture".

Francine's brain has been repeatedly damaged or tampered with by her husband in acts of foolishness such as in "Francine's Flashback" and "Roger 'n' Me".

In "Pulling Double Booty", Francine tells, what Stan describes as, a "Haunting Scene-let" which indicates that Francine has been in Prison before. She re-enacts a scene about being "shanked in the cafeteria", she does not want the same life for Hayley.

Childbirth
In "The Most Adequate Christmas Ever", it was revealed that Hayley was born on a trip to Africa after Stan ignored the doctor's advice who said Francine would give birth any day.

In "Roger's Baby", she took refuge in a motel where she considered having an abortion when she was expecting for the first time. A coin flip was the deciding factor.

In "Star Trek", she claims to have a caesarean section scar from Hayley's birth and a scar on her perineum from Steve's birth.

Including Hayley and Steve, Francine states that she has been pregnant four times previously in "Roger's Baby". In "Spring Break-Up", Roger states that Francine has had 3 kids, and she would carry Libby through pregnancy in "Surro-Gate" as a potential fourth pregnancy. Bailey has been speculated to be a potential fourth child, but this would not have been a separate pregnancy as he was hinted to be a twin with Hayley.

Personality
Francine is a stereotypical trophy housewife who generally seems to enjoy her position in life. She has previously criticized Stan for locking her up without any shirts to fold in "Con Heir", as she "hates down time." She is more sympathetic to Hayley's ideologies and Steve's geekiness than Stan although she gives Hayley a cold shoulder when Hayley confesses she believes she is addicted to pot smoking in "A Jones for a Smith". She also has an obsession with keeping Steve as her baby in "Iced, Iced Babies". She doesn't usually allow others to push her around. In "Stan of Arabia: Part 2", she sang, complaining about Saudi Arabia's treatment of women, which gets her arrested. In "Shallow Vows", she is shown to tolerate being a housewife as long as she is being taken care of and suggests she will leave Stan if he becomes incapacitated.

Although often underestimated, Francine has a shockingly dark side. An incident of how dangerous Francine can be occurred when she discovered Stan had sent his CIA double Bill, to her high school reunion, in his place. Furious, Francine shot Bill's knee-cap, thinking it was Stan. When she was tired of the demands on her life in "Fartbreak Hotel", she entertained a fantasy of killing the family.

Francine also had a tendency to be extremely obsessive sometimes to the point of threatening loved ones or even mutilating herself to reach her goals. When she was desperate to have another baby in "Iced, Iced Babies", she actually aimed a gun at her own husband though she deliberately missed when she fired it. She even chopped off her own hand in "Tears of a Clooney" when Stan handcuffed her to a pole because she was determined to destroy George Clooney. When she was obsessed with something it seemed that only Stan could calm her down. Despite having somewhat disdain over her family when they refuse to keep their resolutions, Francine is shown to be visually in shock over her entire family's fake deaths in "Finger Lenting Good".

Francine doesn't seem to have any problem with killing small animals to make food as shown in "Live and Let Fry" when she attempted to deep fry a baby chick alive and later on deep fried a rabbit. In "In Country...Club", she drowned a small bird for Roger to eat even though she liked singing with it.

In "1600 Candles" and "Pulling Double Booty", she stated that she's been in prison and described what a horrible experience it was, but never said why she was sent in the first place, although in "Family Affair" she admitted to the family that she stabbed her college roommate which could be the reason she went to prison.

In "Spelling Bee My Baby", Francine kidnaps Akiko Yoshida so Steve can win the National Spelling Bee and get into a good college and takes pleasure in Steve's shock when she admits it.

Francine also takes great pride in her looks and has been shown to be a considerably salacious and flirtatious person throughout her life. In "When a Stan Loves a Woman", she revealed she has a sex garden where planted a rose bush for every man Francine slept with that was later revealed to be the largest sex garden in North American and made cover of Sex Garden Magazine.

Hobbies and talents
Being a housewife, Francine doesn't appear at first to have many talents besides cleaning and cooking. In "Tears of a Clooney", she can ride motorcycles with professional skills, and is apparently trained or self-taught in both armed and unarmed combat. In "Stan Time", she can operate small submarines. Francine is also a somewhat trained/self-taught ER surgeon, having spent time as a doctor of the Handicapped Mafia in "Helping Handis". In "Stanny-Boy and Frantastic", when she and Stan were invited to do free running from rooftops of abandoned buildings, Francine was able to do free running better than Stan.

Immediate Family

 * Ma Ma Ling (adoptive mother)
 * Bah Bah Ling (adoptive father)
 * Nicholas Dawson (biological father)
 * Cassandra Dawson (biological mother)
 * Gwen Ling (adoptive sister)
 * Stan Smith (husband)
 * Hayley Smith (daughter)
 * Steve Smith (son)
 * Jeff Fischer (son-in-law)
 * Jack Smith (father-in-law)
 * Betty Smith (mother-in-law)
 * Hercules (stepfather-in-law)